“What I hate is incarceration without trial, extraordinary rendition, exclusion, paranoia and prejudice… ”

These certainly make me very uncomfortable.

“Two wrongs do not make a right .”

They certainly don’t, hence I have no problems opposing both the Iraq AND Afghan wars as well as Guantanimo Bay without feeling obliged to demonstrate any “solidarity” with the other side.

“I don’t think that pulling someone up because they have publicly condemned ‘x’ but haven’t publicly condemned ‘y’ ‘q’ and ‘z’ in the same sentence, or paragraph for that matter, is to be contentious for the sake of contention…”

A fair point Miriam.

But failing to publicly condemn y, q and z is not the same as tacit approval.

Not the same as, how did Sunny put it?

“Please join us and hold one of the 223 placards to show your solidarity for the detainees.”

And marching around Trafalgar Square with big photograph of a probable evil scum-bag held aloft.

That’s not splitting hairs now is it?

Two wrongs do not make a right … they never have and they never will. However I don’t think that pulling someone up because they have publicly condemned ‘x’ but haven’t publicly condemned ‘y’ ‘q’ and ‘z’ in the same sentence, or paragraph for that matter, is to be contentious for the sake of contention; it is stupid, non-constructive and … well yes, infantile. So go ahead and split hairs all you want. Just don’t expect to be taken seriously …

I’m sure many thinking people would find the image of a so-called ‘mainstream’ (by ‘mainstream’ I mean someone who is allowed to write in the Guardian) activist like Sunny standing in Trafalgar Square, proudly displaying a photograph of a terrorist or Islamic extremist in a demonstration of “solidarity” utterly repulsive.

Or are you one of those people who choose to believe that every Gitmo detainee must by default be a thoroughly innocent and decent chap who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got captured for no other reason than being a Muslim?

Is there a little voice in your head that wills you to believe: “Of course that’s what happened; it had to be. The Yanks were behind it and I hate Yanks. Yanks are evil. Therefore the detainees must be innocent.”

I’m sure that’s what happens in Sunny’s subconsious.

The problem with lefies is that they don’t understand that opposing something they disagree with doesn’t necessarily mean that by default they should support the opposite evil.

So opposing Israel, the Iraq or Afghan wars doesn’t mean you must demonstrate “solidarity” with Hamas, Hezbollah, Batthists, the various Sunni and Shia Islamist groups or the Taliban.

Remember “…we’re all Hezbollah now”? I hope you aren’t one of those…

And opposing the lack of due process in Guantanamo Bay doesn’t mean you demonstrate “solidarity” with the detainees, the majority of whom are doubtless thoroughly unpleasant and dangerous people.

As Sunny (predictably) and Amnesty (sadly) discredited themselves by doing.

I used to grapple with SWP and Militant goons at Uni, so I’m experienced with the utter moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the leftie thought-process.

Try thinking about my ‘death-row’ analogy in # 85. See if you can overcome your leftie blind prejudice enough to appreciate the perfect rationality of that example.

Or show me how I’ve got it wrong. How it was perfectly reasonable for Sunny to waddle around Trafalgar Square with a photograph of a probable evil scum-bag in his hands.

Or stubbornly choose not to see it, lest it clashes with your leftie double-think and simply respond with another irrelevant and pathetic personal insult.

That comment’s so worthless I couldn’t even dignify it as ad hominem.

It belongs in a school playground.

Although I suspect that my 12-year-old would be capable of a far more lucid, mature and may I say intelligent response.

Not suprising.

And pathetic.

“…we are holding a demonstration on behalf of the 223 Guantanamo detainees to show that much still needs to be done to free them from illegal detention.

Please join us and hold one of the 223 placards to show your solidarity for the detainees.”

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/6068

“Solidarity”?

The dictionary definition of that word is “A union of interests, purposes, or sympathies among members of a group…”

But you knew what the word meant when you used it didn’t you Sunny?

I happen to oppose the death penalty in the USA. I’d happily demonstrate against it.

But never would I demonstrate my “solidarity” with the murdering rapists on death row.

Get it? Such a fine line between clever and stupid isn’t there?

You cooked your goose with that statement. Showed where your true sympathies lie; that you’d lie down with the devil it you thought that it would be ‘anti-American’ to do so.

The majority of Gitmo detainees are terrorist scum. Those that aren’t are Islamic extremists in every meaning of that term.

By all means campaign for due process and rule of law for everyone, however unpleasant they might be. There’s honour and integrity in that.

But demonstrating solidarity with evil scumbags? How much must you have to hate America to sink that low?

There’s NO honour nor integrity in that.

That’s why AI have lost so much credibility.

And you would have too, if you’d had any to begin with.

my point was they didnt go to him in his role as a cagedprisoner abassador, just as an individual who had experienced illegal detention therefore, amnesty were not looking to ‘partner’ themselves with cagedprisoners.

Anyway i rather liked the event at amnesty for the poems from guantanamo event a few years back….. but hey what do i know………….

I didn’t “tear into the grammar or spelling”. I said it didn’t make sense. And it doesn’t. When you put words together in a sentence it’s supposed to mean something. I can either point this out, or respond with something like ‘a bird in the hand butters no parsnips’. It’s entirely up to you.

BrowEyedGirl,

Thanks for explaining how it all works. We really had no idea.

I imagine the request will have gone to him directly and not via cagedprisoners.

I imagine the request to front a campaign on free speech went straight to David Irving and not via the Ku Klux Klan.

Oh, except it didn’t, did it? AI did once defend Irving’s right to free speech, but they didn’t have him readding piss-poor poetry at their campaign events.

Can you imagine why not?

P.

I do believe that this particular thread was about Amnesty – When you start one on comparative ideologies let me know.

I think it’s got more to do with the fact that the sentence is an amalgamation of half a metaphor and an entirely unrelated sub-clause, myself.

As for the second point you raise … certainly after rigorous debate if that is what (a) given individual/s want to engage in. Most assuredly not on the convenient or otherwise emotive machinations of politically motivated hacks.

The people who want to debate, will; the people who don’t, won’t. What, exactly, is your problem? Apart from the fact that you don’t agree with what some of those debating are saying, I mean?

Let me quote you again:

Whether or not theocracy is a good or bad idea is immaterial. What is material is that individuals should be allowed to determine it for themselves

Problem is, in a theocracy you don’t get allowed to determine very much at all for youself. It’s kinda the point of a theocracy.

What we do know is that in Afghanistan and Iraq, when people have been given the choice, theocracy has been given an overwhelming thunbs-down. I think this has surprised some more than others.

Amnesty will have put together a plan for a speaker tour on the issue of Gitmo. For that they need speakers – they will then approach people with the relivant knowledge and experience.
AI will have asked Moazzam to be part of the event to speak about his experiences as an ex detainee.

Thats as far as his involvement goes with the organisation, he is not acting as an ambassidor for any organistion he is there as an individual.

I imagine the request will have gone to him directly and not via cagedprisoners.

As for the second point you raise … certainly after rigorous debate if that is what (a) given individual/s want to engage in. Most assuredly not on the convenient or otherwise emotive machinations of politically motivated hacks.

All individuals? Sarah Palin, the Israeli Settlers, Bin Laden, Narendra Modi, the Butcher of Gujarat? No thanks, I prefer to hold on to the old-fashioned notion that theocracy is a bad thing. I look forward to the retreat of god-based politics.

Folks, since there seems to be nothing new coming out about the Amnesty story, why not ignore the blogs and do a little reading, maybe learn something? Perhaps we aren’t the experts we think we are.

There’s the Begg book, Enemy Combatants, worth a read, and Gita Sahgals Refusing Holy Orders, and I’ve been looking at these articles:

http://www.awid.org/eng/Issues-and-Analysis/Library/Cross-regional-aspects-of-Jewish-fundamentalisms-Interview-with-Nira-Yuval-Davis

http://www.womenagainstfundamentalism.org.uk/ 2007 report on social cohesion

http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-india_pakistan/article_1684.jsp
-this about the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in – Gita Sahgal was active in the campaign to publicise this in Britain

THE-FETISH-OF-THE-MARGINS-RELIGIOUS-ABSOLUTISM-ANTIRACISM-AND-POSTCOLONIAL-SILENCE by Chetan Bhatt – very academic but worth it

Other reading suggestions?

Ignoring for a second the fact that the above doesn’t actually make any sense, what about the non-third-rate-hacks that support her? The women’s groups that support her? Do they enjoy your disdain, too?

Whether or not theocracy is a good or bad idea is immaterial. What is material is that individuals should be allowed to determine it for themselves

After a rigorous debate, shurely?